On Tue, Apr 27, 2004 at 05:00:10AM -0700, William Ballard wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 26, 2004 at 04:21:28PM -0700, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> > Raul Miller <moth@debian.org> writes:
> >
> > > If we take "program" to mean "a sequence of instructions that a computer
> > > can interpret and execute", then it's reasonable to consider a font file
> > > as instructions on how to render characters in that font.
> >
> > Sure, but not bitmaps. Bitmaps are not "sequences of instructions".
>
> Yes, they totally are: they tell the program interpreting them what to
> do. This email is instructions, too, at several levels.
I don't agree. Your message contained some instructions, such as the
mime-type and the like. However mostly it contained data: operands,
not opcodes.
Perhaps you would argue that your message contained instructions for the
pixels of my LCD screen or the electron beam of my CRT.
Or perhaps you will argue that the line feeds in your message constitute
instructions. I would argue that that is absurd.
Hamish
--
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <hamish@debian.org> <hamish@cloud.net.au>